Mitigation Measures
This article says that the US will allow fully-vaccinated Canadians to enter, starting sometime in November. “Fully-vaccinated” has not been clearly defined yet.
Vaccines
Novavax has published data from their Phase 3 trials in the USA and Mexico in this preprint. I wanted to be snarky and say that maybe this means that they really, truly are done with their Phase 3 trials this time. In truth, the reason for the USA/Mexico trial is because the US FDA requires that manufacturers perform trials in the USA before the FDA will accept a submission.
In a study with almost 30,000 people, their results were very good: 95% against symptomatic infection and 100% against non-VOC/VOI hospitalization/ICU/death. Against VOC/VOI (mostly Alpha), VE was 92.6% effective against symptomatic infection and 90.4% against hospitalization/ICU/death.
From the chatter on social media, the Moderna and J&J applications to the US FDA for approval of their boosters gives antibody information — test tube info — but not data about how it helps human beings.
From the chatter, it sounds like Moderna is almost saying, “Hey, you approved Comirnaty for boosters, and Spikevax is just like Comirnatiy, so you should approve Spikevax too.”
Variants
I haven’t talked a lot about the Mu variant because I don’t think it’s a problem: The current vaccines don’t work as well against Mu, but Delta is more transmissible, so out-competes it. There is still Mu circulating in South America, but IMHO it’s going to be gone soon. This Twitter thread talks about Mu, if you really want to know.
Long COVID
This preprint, disagreeing with some other studies, says that vaccination does not reduce Long COVID symptoms.
Transmission
This study from the USA found that fully opening K-12 schools was associated with a 5% increase in cases in community, especially in schools without mask mandates.
Recommended Reading
This Twitter thread talks about denominators, how they can mess up epi data, and why that’s a problem.
This article is about Singapore’s experience trying to reopen with a relatively high vax rate but low seroprevalence rate.
This article talks about all the pandemic words that we use incorrectly.